New Saks manager sees "amazing" opportunities

Joel Ellzey stops to shake hands with just about every customer in Southgate Mall's Saks Fifth Avenue.

Dressed in a fitted suit complete with pocket square and loafers, Ellzey easily blends into Saks' elegant sales floor, as one might expect of a man who has spent two decades with the luxury chain.

Ellzey, who took over as general manager in mid-February, will need those skills of adaptation — and then some — to mix into the larger tapestry of the changing retail dynamic in Southwest Florida.

He will be the linchpin for Saks' October 2014 shift from Southgate to the planned Mall at University Town Center on University Parkway near Interstate 75. While opening a new store is challenging in itself, Ellzey's task will be compounded because he will have to bring in new customers while also maintaining an existing base of upscale shoppers.

Ellzey will oversee a new Saks store twice the size of the chain's Southgate offering, and at a time when many luxury purveyors are investing more in enhancing their online presence than in new brick-and-mortar stores.

Just as Saks will set the tone for UTC, Ellzey will set the tone for Saks — and by extension, an entire $315 million mall that will be one of the few regional retail hubs to open nationwide when it premieres.

It is a challenge the 44-year-old Ellzey appears to relish — and one that possesses a potentially lucrative personal award.

"I saw this as an opportunity to be a part of something big," said Ellzey, whose brown hair is close-cropped and stylish. "There is something amazing about being a part of a team during a project like this."

Amazing? Perhaps. Daunting? Likely.

In moving miles from downtown Sarasota toward the interstate, Saks risks alienating many of the affluent customers that made the Southgate department store so successful.

By some accounts, the store's sales per square foot — a key measure in the retail industry — are more than double those of even the most profitable typical department store.

At least a few Saks patrons say they will not travel all the way to University Parkway to shop — not even for a bigger, better store.

"Once Saks closes, I won't shop at Southgate Mall anymore," said Terry Neis, a part-time Longboat Key resident. "I'm not a fan of the other stores in the mall, and I can go to stores like that on St. Armands Circle, which is much closer for me."

Neis shops at the Southgate Saks at least once a week.

Ellzey, only the third manager in the Southgate store's 17-year history, will also have to confront the challenge of replacing a popular predecessor; Sally Schule, the store's GM since 2005, stepped down to focus on marketing efforts for Saks regionwide.

"He has a lot of hurdles to face in Sarasota, and people will remember the work he puts in now," said Don Uselmann, a Saks senior vice president and director of stores for Florida and New York.

A passion for retail

Saks, and Sarasota, are a long way from the Mississippi farm where Ellzey grew up, and where his parents still live and work the land.

From a relatively early age, Ellzey knew farming wasn't for him. After graduating from Mississippi State University with a bachelor's degree in business management, Ellzey began his retail career with Parisian, an upscale department store chain based in Alabama that once competed with Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus and the like.

After Saks acquired the chain in 1998, Ellzey went to work there.

"I fell in love with retail at Parisian," said Ellzey, who is fashionably thin and stands about 5 feet, 10 inches tall.

"I knew then that this is what I wanted to do."

He spent 20 years at Saks' Atlanta store, the chain's fifth-largest U.S. location at 150,000 square feet, and worked his way up to assistant general manager. He was also part of a team that renovated and reopened the store, in 2005.

From there he transferred to Tampa, where he managed the chain's West Shore Mall store. He spent just under a year there.

That experience, combined with opening a Parisian department store in Atlanta in the 1990s, will guide Ellzey at Saks as he steers the brand to its new site.

"Joel is in a position where he is now responsible for executing the whole vision that the company has for this new store, in a completely new market for him," said Cathie Wilson, the general manager of the Atlanta Saks store. Ellzey worked there under Wilson for 10 years.

"This is something he has done before, and he understands how important it is to position the store to grow with the city and its customer base," Wilson said.

Much to do

Ellzey, in Sarasota for less than two months and Florida just about a year, has wasted little time in getting established.

He has attended more than 25 charitable events in Sarasota and Manatee counties, including ballet performances, museum galas and a host of parties, Schule said.

He will have a similarly full plate at UTC, where Ellzey will oversee an 80,000-square-foot store that includes an expanded women's shoe boutique, 10022-SHOE; a men's section enhanced from Southgate's; and an in-house restaurant.

Saks, which has hired retail architectural firm Jensen and Goldstein to design its new store, will join Macy's and Dillard's as anchors when the mall opens.

Success at UTC could catapult Ellzey to a larger, flagship store in the chain's portfolio.

"We put him in Tampa to give him an opportunity to grow," said Uselmann, the Saks executive. "He wasn't there long, but he did a great job in Tampa, and now he has an opportunity to grow his career even more.

"After he opens the new store in Sarasota, I'm sure he'll stay a couple of years, but then he'll likely move to a bigger store in a bigger market, where there is more opportunity for him," Uselmann said.

"That's how you grow in this industry. Each step in your career you gain new experiences that help launch you to that next step. Sarasota is a stepping stone for Joel."

Ellzey, too, is taking a philosophical approach to his new gig, especially the shift outside Sarasota.

"The goal is to reach customers at all ends of the region and make them feel confident and comfortable at our store," Ellzey said. "We want to make sure our clients know we are only adding more to what they already know and expect from Saks, and will continue to grow in the future."

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